What Would Happen
by Sushi23505
Summary: Takes place in Betrayed: What would happen if the gang got stuck into the rec hall until they finished reading a book they found called Burned. What will they do with the new info recieved? R
1. Kalona

I got the idea to do this from the author of What If. Starts at Betrayed. Enjoy! I dont own HoN.

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"New kid. Check it out," Shaunee said as she slid into the big booth like bench we always claim as ours for every school meal served in the dining hall (translation: high school cafeteria).  
"Tragic Twin, just tragic." Erin's voice totally echoed Shaunee's.

After Erin finished her sentence for Shaunee I heard this weird buzzing noise. I looked around at my friends and their faces said they didnt have a clue either. Ugh, the noise started to hurt my ear, like in an ear peircing kinda way. Next thing I knew was that there was a flash of bright light and we were laying down on the floor in the rec hall. I looked to see who else ended up here. I the faces from Stevie Rae, Damien, Shaunee, Erin, and, what! Aphrodite? Umm, can someone say weird.

"What the hell are we doing here!?" Aphrodite screamed "How are we supposed to know?" Stevie Rae said "Lets just get out of here." Shaunee said "So we can finish eating." Erin chimed in

I walked to the door but halfway to the door I was pushed back by some force. I tried again, but nothing.

"Hey," Damien said "Look! It's a book!"  
"This is no-" Erin started "-to read!" Shaunee finished

I picked up the book and looked at the title. It said Burned, hmm, wonder what it was doing here.

"It says Burned." Aphrodited pointed out "No duh-" Shaunee said "Captain obvious." Erin finished "Why dont we read it." Damien suggested "Why not? We need to pass the time." Stevie Rae said "Sure, I'll start." I said

I opened the book to the Acknoldgments page where it read: IMPORTANT! READ NOW!

"Weird." I said "Hey! It is written like old english! Read it Zoey!" Stevie Rae said "Okay! Okay! It says: Ye can not leave thy room til ye read thy book, fore it beholds thee future! Okay, plain weird."  
"Just read the damn thing!" Aphrodite said (Hateful cow)  
"Okay, here goes: Chapter one says Kalona. Wonder who that is. Oh well, anyways:"

**Kalona lifted his hands. He didnt hesitate. There was no doubt whatsoever in his mind about what he had to do. He would not allow anything or anyone get in his way, and this human boy was standing between him and what he desired. He didnt particulary want to kill the boy; he didnt particulary want the boy alive, either. It was a simple necessity. He didnt feel remorse or regret. As had been the norm during the centuries since he'd fallen, Kalona felt very little. So, indifferently, the winged immortal twisted the boy's neck and put an end to his life**.

"Wait!" Stevie Rae screamed "Who did this Kalona guy kill? And how can he be a fallen immortal?"  
"How am I supposed to know?" I said "Just finish!" The Twins screamed

**"No!"**  
**The anguish of that one word froze Kalona's heart. He dropped the boy's lifeless body and whirled around in time to see Zoey-**

"Did it just say Zoey?" Aphrodite asked "It could mean anyone," I said hoping it wasnt me "Sure..." Aphrodite said

**-racing toward him. Their eyes met. In hers were despair and hatred. In his was an impossible denial. He tried to formulate the words that might make her understand-make her forgive him. But there was nothing he could say to change what she had seen, and even if he could work the impossible, there was no time.**  
**Zoey threw the full power of the element spirit at him.**

"Spirit is your best element Z." Damien pointed out Ah, hell.

**It hit the immortal, striking him with a force that was beyond physical. Spirit was his essence-his core-the element that had susstained him for centuries and which he had always been comfortable, as well as most powerful. Zoey's attack seared him. It lifted him with succh force that he was hurled over the huge stone wall that seperated the vampyre's island and the Gulf of Venice.**

"Venice? Vampyres? That is where the High Council is!" Damien said "As in the High Council of all Vamps?" I aksed "Yup"  
"Umm...This book is weird."

**The icy water engulfed him, smothering him. For an instant the pain within Kaalona was so deadening that he didnt fight it. Perhaps he should let this terrible struggle for life and its trappings end. Perhaps, once again, he should allow himself to be vanquished by her. But less than a heartbeat after he thought, he felt it. Zoey's soul shattered-**

"WAIT! WHAT?!" I stood up and screamed "Z! Your soul shatters, that just cant happen!" Stevie Rae said "How does your soul shatter?" Aphrodite asked "It's possible," Damien said "I read it in the fledgling handbook."  
"Well, arent you-" Shaunee started "-a good student." Erin finished (As usual)  
"You want someone else to read?" Stevie Rae offered "Just let me finish the chapter."

**-and, as truly as his fall had carried him from one realm to another, his spirit departed this world.**  
**The knowledge wounded him worse than had her blow against him.**  
**Not Zoey! He'd never meant to cause her harm. Even through all of Neferet's machinations, through all of the Tsi Sgili's manipulations and plans, he'd held tight to the knowledge that, in spite of everything, he used his vast immortal powers to keep Zoey safe because umltimately she was the closet she could come to Nyx in this realm-and this was the only realm left to him.**

"Did he just say Nyx? What does a fallen immortal half to do with Nyx?" I asked "I dont know, but I dont like what it said about Neferet." Stevie Rae said

**Fighting to recover from Zoey's attack, Kalona lifted his massive body from the clutching waves and realized the truth. Because of him, Zoey's spirit was gone, which meant she would die**.

"Zoey's gonna die!" The Twins screamed "Maybe we can prevent it." I said knowing we might not

**With his first breath of air, he released a wrenching cry of despair, echoeing her last word, "No!"**  
**Had he really believed since his fall that he didnt truly have feelings? He'd been a fool and wrong, so very wrong. Emotions battered him as he flew raggedly just above the waterline, chipping away at his already wounded spirit, raging against him, weakening him,bleeding his soul. With blurred, blackend vision, he stared across the lagoon, squinting to see the lights that heralded the land. He'd never make it there. It would have to be the palace. He had no choice. Using the last reserves of his strength, Kalona's wings beat against the frigid air, lifting him over the wall, where he crumpled to the frozen earth.**  
**He didnt know how long he layed there in the cold darkness of the shattered night as emotions overwhlemed his shaken soul. Somewhere in the far reaches his mind, he understood the familtary of what had happened to him. He'd fallen again, only this time it was more in spirit than in body-though his body didnt seem to command any longer either.**

"I dont know if I should feel sorry for him or not." I said "Dont," Aphrodite answers "He killed you, or shattered you at least."  
"Oh yea."

**He felt her pressence before she spoke. It had been like that between them from the first, whether he truly wished it or not-they simply sensed one another.**  
**"You allowed Stark to bear wittness to your killing of the boy!" Neferet's voice was more frigid than the winter sea.**

"Neferet? Is she evil or something?" I asked "And who is Stark?" Damien says "Just read, maybe we will find out." Stevie Rae said

**Kalona turned so that he could see more than the toe of her stiletto shoe. He looked up at her, blinking to try to clear hiss vision.**  
**"Accident." Finding his voice again he managed a rasping whisper. "Zoey should not have been there."**  
**"Accidents are unecceptable, and I care not one bit that she was there. Actually, the result of what she saw was rather convienent."**

"She is evil. So much for being my mentor." I mumbled

**"You know that her soul shattered?" Kalona hated the unnatural weakness in his voice and the strange lethagry in his body almost as much as he hated the effect Neferet's icy beauty had on him**.

"Gross." Aphrodite said

**"I imagine most of the vampyres on the island know it. Typically for her, Zoey's spirit wasnt exactly quiet in its leave taking. I wonder, though, how many of the vampyres aslso felt the blow the chit dealt you before she departed." Neferet tapped her chin contemplativly with one long, sharp fingernail.**  
**Kalona remained silent, struggling to center himself and draw together the ragged edges of his torn spirit, but the earth his body pressed against was too real, and he had not the strength to reach above and feed his soul from the wispy vestiges of the Otherworld that floated there.**  
**"No, I dont imagine any of them felt it." Neferet continued in her coldest, most calculatting voice "None of them are connected to Darkness, to you, as I am. Is that not so, my love?"**

"Wait, they capitalized Darkness as if naming a person. I dont like that. I have a feeling this isnt gonna be a very happy book." Damien said scared

**"We are uniquely connected," Kalona managed, though he suddenly wished the words were not true.**  
**"Indeed..." She said, still distracted by her thoughts. Then Neferet's eyes widened as a new realization came to her. "I have long wondered how it was that A-ya managed to wound you, such a physically powerful immortal, badly enough that those ridiculous Cherokee hags could entrap you. I believe little Zoey has just proved the answer you've so carefully withheld from me. Your body can be damaged but only through your spirit. Isnt that fascinating?"**  
**"I will heal." He put as much strength as possible in his voice."Return me to Capri and the castle there. Take me to the rooftop, as close to the sky as I can be, and I will regain my strength."**  
**"I imagine you would-were I so inclined to do that. But I have other plans for you, my love."**

"My love? What kind of sick crap is she trying to pull over on him?" Aphrodite asked "Makes me wretch," Shaunee said "Ditto Twin."

**Neferet lifted her arms, extending them over him. As she continued to speak she began weaving her long fingers through the air, creating intricate patterns, like a spider spinning her web. "I will not allow Zoey to interfere with us ever again."**

"I dont like that, what would I want to do with him?" I asked "Ya, you already have like 2 boyfriends." Aphrodite sneered "Shut up, hateful hag." I said

**"A shattered soul is a death sentence. Zoey is no longer any threat to us,"He said. With knowing eyes, Kalona watched Neferet. She drew to her a sticky blackness he recognized all too well. He'd spent lifetimes battling that Darkness before he embraced its cold power. It pulsed and fluttered familiarly, restlessly under his fingers. She shouldnt be able to command Darkness so tangibly. The thought drifted like the echo of a death knell through his weary kind. A High Priestess shouldnt have such power.**  
**But Neferet was no longer merely a High Priestess. She had grown beyond the boundries of that role some time ago, and she had no trouble controlling the writhing blackness she conjured.**  
**She is becoming immortal, Kalona realized, and with that realization, fear joined regret and despair and anger where they already simmered within the fallen Warrior of Nyx.**

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold it right there! Warrior of Nyx? No way in hell-" I cut Aphrodite off "It said he fell, a fallen immortal." I reminded her "I forgot about that." She said

**"One would think it would be a death sentence," Neferet spoke calmly as she drew more and more of the inky threads to her, "but Zoey has a terribly inconveinent habit of surviving. This time I am going to ensure she dies."**  
**"Zoey's soul also has a habit of reincarnating," He said, porposefully baiting Neferet to try to throw her off focus.**  
**"Then I will destroy her over and over again!" Neferet's concentration only increased with the anger his words evoked. The blackness she spun intensified, writhing with swollen power in the air around her.**

"Can you say crazy much?" Stevie Rae commented

**"Neferet," He tried to reach her by using her name. "Do you truly understand what it is you are attempting to command?"**  
**Her gaze met his, and, for the first time, Kalona saw the scarlet stain that nested in the darkness of her eyes. "Of course I do. It's what lesser beings call evil."**  
**"I am not a lesser being, and I, too, have called it evil."**  
**"Ah, not for centuries you havent." Her laughter was vicious. "But it seems lately you've been living too much with shadows from youe past instead of reveling in the lonely dark power of the present. I know who is to blame for that."**  
**With a tremendous effort, Kalona pushed himslef to a sitting position.**  
**"No. I dont want you to move." Neferet flicked one finger at him, and a thread of darkness snaked around his neck, tightend, and jerked him down, pinning him to the ground again.**  
**"What is it you want of me?" He rasped "I want you to follow Zoey's spirit to the Otherworld and be sure none of her friends"-She sneered the word-"manage to find a way to coax her to rejoin her body."**  
**Shock jolted through the immortal. "I have been banished by Nyx from the Otherworld. I cannot follow Zoey there."**  
**"Oh, but you are wrong my love. You see, you always think too literally. Nyx ousted you-you fell-you cannot return. So you have believed for centuries that is that. Well, you literally cannot."**

"What is the crazy bitch talking about now?" Aphrodite asked "Who knows," I said finding it weird to think of Neferet like this

**She sighed dramatically as he stared at her blankly. "Your gorgeous body was banished, thats all. Did Nyx say anything about your immortal soul?"**  
**"She need not say it. If a soul is seperated from from a body for too long, the body will die."**  
**"But your body isnt mortal, which means it can be seperated indefinitely from its soul without dying." She said Kalona struggled to keep the terror her words filled him with from his expression. "It is true that I cannot die, but that does not mean thaat I will remain undamaged if my spirit leaves my body for too long." I could age...go mad...become a never dying shell of myself...The possiblilities swirleed through his mind.**  
**Neferet shrugged. "Then you will have to be sure to finish you task soon, so that you may return to your lovely immortal body before it is irreparably damaged." She smild seductlivly at him. "I would very much dislike if anything happened to yur body, my love."**  
**"Neferet, dont do this. You are putting into motion things that will require payment, the consequences of which even you will not want to face."**  
**"Do not threaten me! I released you from your imprisonment. I loved you. And I watched you fawn over that simpering teenager. I want her gone from my life! Consequences? I embrace them! I am not the weak, ineffective High Priestess of a rule-following goddess any longer. Dont you understand that? Have you not been distracted by that child, you would know it without me telling you. I am an immortal, the same as you, Kalona!"**

"Whoa! Does that mean she is impared for eternity now?" Aphrodite asked

**Kalona stared at her, understanding that Neferet was utterly, truly mad, and wondering why that madness only served her power and intensify her beauty.**

"I said she was crazy." Aphrodite interupted, again "Can you stop? I am reading."  
"Sorry for saying my mind."

**"So this is what I have decided to do," She continued, speaking methodicly. "I am going to keep your sexy, immortal body safely tucked away underground somewhere while your soul travels to the Otherworld and makes sure Zoey does not return here."**  
**"Nyx will never allow it!" The words burst from him before he could stop them.**  
**"Nyx always allows free will. As her former High Priestess, I know without any doubt that she will allow you to travel in spirit to the Otherworld." Neferet said slyly "Remember, Kalona, my true love, if you ensure Zoey's death, you will be removing the last impediment to us reigning side by side. You and I will be powerful beyond imagining in this world of modern marvels. Think of it-we will subjuagte humans and bring back the reign of vampyres with all the beauty and passion and limitless power that means. The earth will be ours. We will, indeed, give new life to the glorious past!"**  
**Kalona knew that she was playing on his weaknesses. Silently, he cursed himself for allowing her to have learned too much about his deepest desires. He'd trusted her, so Neferet knew that because he wasnt Erebus he could never truly rule beside Nyx in the Otherworld, and he was driven to recreate as much of what he'd lost here in the modern world.**  
**"You see, my love. when you consider it logically, it is only right that you follow Zoey and sever the link between her soul and her body." Neferet spoke nonchalnantly, as if the two of them were discussing the choice of material for her gown.**  
**"How am I even to find Zoey's soul?" He tried to match her matter-of-fact tone. "The Otherworld is a realm so vast, only the gods and goddesses can transverse it."**  
**Neferet's bland expression tightend, making her cruel beauty terrible to behold. "Do not pretend you dont have a connection to her soul!" The Tsi Sgili immortal drew a deep breath. In a more resonable tone, she continued. "Admit it, my love; you could find Zoey even if no one else could. What is your choice Kalona? To rule on earth at my side, or to remain a slave in the past?"**  
**"I choose to rule. I will always choose to rule." He said without hesitation As soon as he spoke, Neferet's eyes changed. The green within them became totally engulfed in scarlet. She turned the glowing orbs on him-holding, entrapping, entrancing. "Then hear me, Kalona, Zoey Redbird, fledgling High Priestess of Nyx, is no more, I swear to you I will remove these dark chains and allow your spirit to return. Then I will take you to the rooftop of our castle on Capri and let the sky breath life and strength into you so that you will rule this realm as my consort, my protector, my Erebus." As Kalona watched, helpless to stop her, Neferet drew one long, pointed fingernail across the palm of her right hand. Cupping the blood that pooled there, she held her hand up, offering. "By blood I claim this power; by blood I bind this oath." All around her, Darkness stirred and descended on her palm, writhing, shivering, drinking. Kalona could feel the draw of that Darkness. It spoke to his soul with seductive, powerful whispers.**

"Okay! How can Darkness whisper to you?" I aksed "I dont know, but Neferet is really starting to creep me out." Damien said

**"Yes!" The word was a moan torn deep from his throat as Kalona yielded himself to the greedy Darkness.**  
**When Neferet continued, her voice was magnified, swollen with power. "It is your choice that I have sealed this oath by blood with Darkness, but should you fail me and break it-"**  
**"I will not fail,"**  
**Her smile was unwordly in her beauty; her eyes roiled with blood. "If you, Kalona, fallen Warrior of Nyx, break this oath and fail in my sworn quest to destroy Zoey Redbird, fledgling High Priestess of Nyx, I shall holdd dominion over your spirit as long as you are an immortal."**  
**The answering words came unbidden by him, evoked by the seductive Darkness, which for centuries he'd chosen over Light. "If I fail, you shall hold dominion over my spirit for as long as I am an immortal."**  
**"Thus I have ssworn," Again Neferet slashed her palm, creating a bloody X in her flesh. The copper scent wafted to Kalona like smoke rising from a fire as she raised her hand to Darkness. "Thus it shall be!" Neferet's face twisted in pain as Darkness drank from her again, but she didnt flinch-didnt move until the air around her pulsed, bloated with her blood and her oath.**  
**Only then did she lower her hand. Her tounge snaked out, licking the scarlet line and ending the bleeding. Neferet walked to him, bent, and gently placed her hand on either side of his face, much as he had held the human boy before delivering his deathblow. He could feel Darkness thrumming around and within her, a raging bull waiting eagerly for his mistress's command.**  
**Her blood-reddened lips paused just short of touching his. "With the power that rushes through my blood, and by the strength of the lives I have taken, I command you, my delicous threads of Darkness, to pull this Oath Bound immortal's soul from his body and speed him to the Otherworld. Go and do as I order, and I swear I will sacrifice to you the life of an innocent you have been unable to taint. So thee for me, I mote it be!"**  
**Neferet drew in a deep breath, and Kalona saw the dark threads she'd summoned slither between her full red lips. She'd inhaled Darkness until she was swollen with it, and then she covered his mouth with hers, with that blackened, blood-tainted kiss, blew Darkness within him with such force that it ripped his already wounded soul from hi body. As his soul shreiked in soundless agony, Kalona was forced up, and into the realm which his Goddess had banished him, leaving his body lifeless, chained, Oath bound by evil, and at the mercy of Neferet.**

"His Goddess?! Since when? He failed and fell!" Aphrodite ranted "That was so confusing! I am not reading the next chapter, I vote Aphrodite!"  
"Fine, cough it over."  
I handed it to her and she went to where we left off...


	2. Rephaim

Here is chapter 2. I dont own HoN, sadly I might add. Read and Review. Enjoy!

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"The second chapter says Rephaim, I am not askin' who that is because last time we found out about Kalona." Aphrodite said  
"Just read." I said

**The sonormous drum was like the heartbeat of an immortal; neverending, engulfing, overwhelming. It echoed through Rephaim's soul in time with the pounding of his blood. Then, to the beat of the drum, the ancient words took form. They wrapped around his body so that even as he slept, his pulse allied itself in harmony with the ageless melody. In his dream, the women's voices sang:**

**_Ancient one sleeping, waiting to arise  
When earth's power bleeds sacred red  
The mark strikes true; Queen Tsi Sgili will devise  
He shall be washed from his entombing bed_**

**The song was seductive, and like a labyrinth, it circled on and on.**

**_Through the hand of the dead he is free  
Terrible beauty, montsrous sight  
Ruled again they shall be  
Women shall kneel to his dark might_**

**The music was a whispered enticement. A promise. A blessing. A curse. The memory of what it foretold made Rephaim's sleeping body restless. He twitched like a child and murmered a one word question: "Father?"**

"Who the hell would abandon their child like that? I may be a bitch, but that is something I would never do." Aphrodite said  
"And what is with the song? That is no-" Erin started  
"-frickin lullaby." Shaunee finished

**The melody concluded with the rhyme Rephaim had memorized centuries ago:**

**_Kalona's song sounds sweet  
As we slaughter with cold heat_**

**"...slaughter with cold heat." Even sleeping, Rephaim responded to the words. He didnt awaken, but his heartbeat increased-his hands curled into fists-his body tensed. On the cusp between awake and asleep, the drum beat stuttered to a halt, and the soft voices of the women were replaced by one that was deep and all to familiar.**

**_"Traitor...coward...betrayer...liar!" _The male voice was a condemnation. With it's litany anger, it invaded Rephaim's dream and jolted him fully into the waking world.**

**"Father!" Rephaim surged upright, throwing off the old papers and scraps of cardboard he'd used to create a nest around him.**

"A nest? What is he a bird or something?" Damien asked  
"We shall see." I say  
"I dont know about ya'll, but this book is freaky." Stevie Rae twanged

**"Father, are you here?"**

**A shimmer of movement caught his vision, and he jerked forward, jarring his broken wing-**

"So he is a BirdBoy!" Aphrodite said  
"Shut up!" The Twins said

**-as he peered from the depths of the dark, cedar paneled closet.**

**"Father?"**

**His heart knew Kalona-**

"KALONA!" Aphrodite screamed "Kalona is his father? That bastard!"  
"We agree," The Twins said

**-wasnt there even before the vapoe of light and motion took to reveal the child.**

**"What are you?"**

**Rephaim focused his burning gaze on the girl. "Begone, apparation."**

**Instead of fading like she should have, the child narrowed her eyes to study him, appearing intrigued. "You're not a bird, but you have wings. And you're not a boy, but you have arms and legs. And your eyes are like a boy's, too, only they're red. So, what are you?"**

**Rephaim felt a surge of anger. With a flash of movement that caused white-hot shards of pain to radiate through his body, he leaped from the closet, landing a few feet before the ghost-predatory, dangerous, defensive.**

"All she did was ask a question, you would be curious too." I said  
They all murmed a sign of mhm's.

**"I am a nightmare give to life, spirit! Go away and leave me in peace before you learn that there are things far worse than death to fear."**

**At his abrupt movement, the child ghost had taken one small step backward, so that now her shoulder brushed against the low windowpane. But there she halted, still watching him with a curious, intelligent gaze.**

**"You cried out for you father in your sleep. I heard you. You cant fool me. I'm smart like that, and I remember things. Plus, you dont scare me because you're really just hurt and alone."**

**Then the ghost of the girl child crossed her arms petulantly over her thin chest, tossed her long blond hair back, and disappeared, leavung Rephaim just as she named him, hurt and alone.**

**His fisted hands loosened. His heartbeat quieted. Rephaim stumbled heavily back to his makeshift nest and rested his head against the closet wall behind him.**

**"Pathetic," He murmed aloud. "The favorite son of an ancient immortal reduced to hiding in refuse and talking to a ghost of a human child." He tried to laugh but failed. The echo of the music from his dream, from his past, was still too loud in the air around him. As was the other voice-the one he could have sworn was that of his father.**

**He couldnt sit anymore. Ignoring the pain in his arm and the sick agony that was his wing, Rephaim stood. He hated the weakness that pervaded his body. How long has he been here, wounded, exhausted from the flight from the depot, and curled into a box in a wall? He couldnt remember. Had one day passed? Two?**

**_Where was she? She said she'd come to him in the night. And yet here he was, where Stevie Rae had sent him._**

"STEVIE RAE?" We all yelled, Stevie Rae suddenly turned pale  
"I dont know! This hasnt even happened!" She screamed  
"Just finish, this chapter isnt happy either." I said

_**It was night, and she hadnt come.**_

**With a sound of self-loathing, he left the closet and his nest, stalking past the window sill in front of which the girl child had materialized to a door that led to a rooftop balcony. Instinct had driven him up to the second floor of the abandoned mansion, just after dawn, when he'd arrived. At the end of even his great reservoir of strength, he'd thought only of safety and sleep.**

**But now he was all to awake.**

**He stared out at the empty museum grounds. The ice that had been falling for days from the sky had stopped, leaving the huge trees that surrounded the rolling hills on which sat Gilcrease Museum and its abandoned mansion with bent and ruined branches. Rephaim's night vision was good, but he could detect no movement at all outside. The homes that filled the area between the museum and downtown Tulsa were almost as dark as they had been in his postdawn journey. Small lights dotted the landscape-not the great blazing electricity Rephaim had come to expect from a modern city. They were only weak, flickering candles-nothing compared to the majesty of the power this world could envoke.**

**There was, of course, no mystery to what had happened. The lines that carried power to the homes of modern humans had been snapped just as surely as the ice-burdened boughs of the trees. Rephaim knew what was good for him. Except for the fallen branches and other debris left on the roadways, the streets appeared mostly passable. Had the great electric machine not been broken, people would have flooded these grounds as daily human life resumed.**

**"The lack of power keeps humans away," He muttered ti himself. "But what is keeping her away?"**

**With a sound of pure frustration, Rephaim wrenched open the delapidated door, automatically seeking open sky as balm to his nerves. The air was cool, and thick with dampness. Low around the winter grass, fog hung in wavy sheets, as if earth was trying to shroud herself from his eyes.**

**His gaze lifted, and Rephaim drew a long, shuddering breath. He inhaled the sky. It seemed unnauturally bright compared to the darkend city. Stars beckoned him, as did the sharp cresent of a waning moon.**

**Everythhing within Rephaim craved the sky.**

"Okay! You like the sky! We get it-" Shaunee started  
"You damned BirdBoy!" Erin finished

**He wanted it under his wings, passing through his dark feathered body, caressing him with the touch of a mouther he'd never known.**

**His uninjured wing extended itself, stretching more than a grown mans body length besides him. His other wing quivered, and the night air Rephaim had breathed in burst from him in an agonized moan.**

**_Broken!_ The word seered through his mind.**

**"No. That is not a certainty." Rephaim spoke aloud. He shook his head, trying to clear away the unusual weariness that was making him feel increasingly helpless-increasingly damamged. "Concentrate!" Rephaim admonished himself. "It's time I found Father." He still wasnt well, but Rephaim's mind, though weary, was clearer than it had been since his fall. He should be able to detect some trace of his father. No matter how much distance or time seperated them, they were tied by blood and spirit and especailly by the gift of immortality that had been Rephaim's birthright.**

"Why would he want to find his father who had A. abondoned him and B. was an evil jackass as if it wasnt obvious, Rephaim is struggling for good." Aphrodite interupted her reading

**Rephaim looked up into the sky, thinking of the currents of air on which he was so used to gliding. He drew a deep breath, lifted his uninjured arm, and stretched forth his hand, trying to touch those elusive currents and vestiges of dark Otherworld magick that languished there. "Bring me some sense of him!" He made his pleasure urgently to the night.**

**For a moment he believed he felt a flicker of response, far, far off to the east. And then weariness was all he could feel. "Why can I not sense you, Father?" Frustrated and unusually exhausted, he let his hand drop limply to is side.**

**_Unusual weariness..._**

**"By all gods!" Rephaim finally relised what had drained his strength and left him a broken shell of himsellf. He knew what was keeping him from sensing the path his father had taken. "She did this." His voice was hard. His eyes blazed crimson.**

"Nice, now Rephaim is angry for something I havent even done yet!" Stevie Rae groaned  
"Well, let us see how you hurt him more." Aphrodite said  
"JUST STOP FIGHTING!" Damien screamed

**Yes, he'd been terribly wounded; but as the son of an immortal, his body should have already begun it's repair process. He'd slept-twice since the Warrior had shot him from the sky. His mind had cleared. Sleep should have continued to revive him. Even if, as he suspected, his wing was permamently damaged, and the rest of his body should have noticably better. His powers should have returned to him.**

**But the Red One had drunk of his blood,_ Imprinted with him._**

"Who is the Red One?" I asked  
"Maybe Stevie Rae, I mean she is the one hiding him. And too Imprint, you have been naughty girl." Aphrodite sneered  
"But why the Red One, I mean shouldnt it be the Blue One or something like that?" Damien said  
"And why the Blue-" Erin said  
"-One Queen Damien?" Shaunee finished  
"Because our Crescents are blue, not red. Stevie Rae might have changed."  
"OMG! I might have made it!" Stevie Rae burst  
"Let us read and find out." Damien said

**And in doing so, she had disturbed the balance of immortal power within him.**

**Anger rose to meet frustration already there.  
She'd used him and then abandoned him.  
_Just like Father had._**

**"No!" He corrected himself immediatly. His father had been driven away by the fledling High Priestess.**

"I still haven't changed!" I scream  
"At least you become our High Priestess." Damien said softly  
"With a chance of death." I say  
"Z, your soul." Stevie Rae said  
"Oh, forgot."

**He would return when he was able, and Rephaim would be at his fathers side once was the Red One that used him, then casted him aside.**

**Why did the very thought cause such a curiouss ache within him? ignoring the feeling, he raised his face to the familiar sky. He hadnt wanted this Imprint. he'd only saved her because he owed her a life, and knew all to well one of the dangeers of this world, as well as the next, was the power of an unpaid life debt.**

**Well, she had saved him-found him, hidden him, and then released him, but on the depot rooftop, he had returned the debt by helping her escape from a certain death. His life debt to her was now paid. Rephaim was the son of an immortal, not a weak human man. He had little doubt that he could break this Imprint-this ridiculous byproduct of saving her life. He would use what was left of his strength to wish it away, and then he would truly begin to heal.**

**He breathed in the night again. Ignoring the weakness in his body, Rephaim focused the strength of his will.**

**"I call upon the power of the spirit of ancient immortals, which is mine by birthright to command, to break-"**

**The wave of despair crashed over him, and Rephaim staggered against the balcony's railing. The sadness radiated with such force that it drove him to his knees. There he remained, gasping with pain and shock.**

"What is happening to him?" Stevie Rae looked sad and worried

**What is happening to me?  
**

**Next, an odd, alien fear filled him, and Rephaim began to understand.**

**"These are not my feelings," He told himself, trying to find his own center within the maelstrom of distress. "These are her feelings."**

**Rephaim gasped as hopelessness followed fear. Steeling himself against the continued onslaught, he struggled to stand, fighting the wave of Stevie Rae's emotions.**

"What's wrong with Stevie Rae?" I asked feeling sick  
"We can stop it, she might just be scared." Damien said  
"Yea, her bumpkin ass probably looked in the mirror and saw what she was wearing." Aphrodite laughed  
"Shut up you hate-" Erin said  
"Fuckin' hag." Shaunee finished  
I was the only one who noticed Stevie Rae didnt say anything

**Resolutely, he forced himself to focus through the onslaught and weariness that tugged at him relentlessly-to touch the place of power that lay locked and dormant for most of his humanity-the place to which his blood held the key.**

**Rephaim began the ivocation anew. This time with an altogether different attempt.**

**Later, hee would tell himself that his response had been automatic-that he had been acting under the influence of their Imprint; it had been simply more powerful then he expected.**

"Does it have to keep saying Imprint?" Stevie Rae moaned

**It was the damnable Imprint that had caused him to believe that the surest, quickest way to wash the emotions from the Red One was to draw her to him and thus remove her from whatever was causing her pain.**

**It couldnt be that he cared she was in pain. It could never be that.**

**"I call upon the power of the spirit of ancient immortals, which is mine by birthright to command," Rephaim spoke quickly. Ignoring the pain in his battered body, he pulled energy to him from the deepest shadows of the night, and then channeled that power through him, charging it with immortality. The air around him glistened as it became stained with a dark scarlet radiance. "Through the immortal might of my father, Kalona, who seeded my blood and spirit with power, I send you to my-" There his words broke off. His? She wasnt his anything. She was...she was..."She is the Red One! Vampyre High Priestess to those who are lost,"**

"He just said Vampyre High Priestess to those who are lost! I become a High Priestess!" Stevie Rae cheered  
"Awesome." I say

**He finally blurted. "She is attached to me through blood Imprint and through life debt. Go to her. Strengthen her. Draw her to me. By the immortal part of my being, I command it so!"**

**The red mist scattered off instantly, flying to the south. Back to the way he'd come. Back to find her.**

**Rephaim turned his gaze to look after it. And then he waited.**

"Well, that chapter was just ever so happy!" Aphrodite said in a too nice voice  
"We learned about something from Stevie Rae, cant wait for what comes next." I say

I instantly heard that noise again, the one from before. Maybe we are leaving, but the thought ended as soon as it began. There was a flash off bright light and a guy had appeared before us. He looked just as confused as we were. He had brown hair and looked like a bad boy the way that he held himself. After about 2.5 seconds he had on a cocky smile that made my heart leap.

"Who the hell are you?" Aphrodite asked  
"How did I get here?" He asked at the same time  
"We dont know how, but you cant leave til we finish this book." Damien said  
"How far are you?"  
"2 chapters."  
"Now who are you?" I asked  
"You first," He said smiled  
"I am Zoey Redbird, these are my friends: Damien Maslin, Shaunee Cole, Erin Bates, Stevie Rae Johnson, and that is Aphrodite Lafont." I said  
"Well, my name is Stark." He said simply

* * *

Hope you liked the chapter, and a little twist with Stark! What will happen next? I have to thank my reviewer VampLuver for the idea to bring him in. Stay tuned next time for WHAT WILL HAPPEN! Just press the green review button and tell me what you think!


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